A number of different wireless networks have been developed. One of the most common wireless technologies is wireless LAN (wireless local area network) or WLAN technology. An example WLAN technology is described in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE 802.11 family of industry specifications, such as specifications for IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11a and 802.11n, etc. A number of different 802.11 task groups are involved in developing specifications relating to improvements to the existing 802.11 technology. Other wireless technologies are being developed, such as IEEE 802.16 or WiMAX technology. A variety of other wireless networks exist, such as cellular networks and the like.
Errors may sometimes be introduced during transmission via a wireless or other medium. A number of different techniques have been employed in attempt to detect errors. For example, a checksum is sometimes calculated and appended to a message at a transmitting node to allow a receiving node to detect errors in the received message.
Authentication is also sometimes employed to allow a receiving node to confirm that a received message was sent by an alleged sending node, and not sent from another node (e.g., an attacker or other node pretending to be the alleged sending node). A number of different security techniques have been employed to allow authentication of messages or between nodes.
Unfortunately, in some cases, techniques that attempt to provide error detection or authentication in networks may introduce significant overhead.
For example, in IEEE 802.16, error detection for a frame body may be provided by a one byte checksum. In addition, with respect to security or authentication, a Hashed Message Authentication Code and Cipher-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC/CMAC) tuple may be provided in some messages, which may introduce significant overhead for messages.
It may be desirable to provide more efficient techniques to provide error detection and/or authentication.